


Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boy

by calrissian18



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Destitute Draco, Doctor/Patient, Grimmauld Place, Healer Harry, Hurt Draco, Living Together, M/M, Nearly Everyone Mentioned In 'Characters' Is Dead, Paroled Draco, Pining Harry, Werewolf Draco
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-31
Updated: 2013-05-31
Packaged: 2017-12-13 13:16:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/824713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/calrissian18/pseuds/calrissian18
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Draco has a new flatmate and Potter has ideas of his own.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boy

Draco spooned off-brand cereal into his mouth, or occasionally into his cheek next to his mouth, feeling out of sorts. He had woken up that morning to find an unwelcome guest in his hovel. Really, the impropriety of it, coming by without an invitation and setting up camp! Draco had shaken his finger at his new flatmate but had been too tired to truly begin scolding. Now, however, it was all he could think of. Some spider had moved in overnight and hadn't even thought of addressing him about it first. Its web in the corner of his ceiling looked mockingly more comfortable, not to mention more aesthetically pleasing, than his mattress (he couldn't in good conscience call it a bed).  
  
Cold metal thunked against plastic and drowned soggy loops as Draco frowned and marched off in the direction of his bedroom. He stared up at the eight-legged freeloader and scowled violently. "If you're going to live here then you're to pay rent."  
  
"I mean what I say, I have to work at that," Draco shivered, " _place_ even to afford this squalor. You can't stay here if you don't intend to contribute." Draco felt authoritative for the first time since his school days and he offered the listless arachnid a cool nod. "I'll give you a day to think it over."  
  
He stomped out of the room, congratulating himself on how well the confrontation had gone, grabbed his threadbare jacket off the table, hunched his shoulders, and went out into the world.

* * *

"How are you feeling today, Malfoy?" Potter asked, sounding haggard.  
  
Draco shrugged his shoulders. He hated it here. He hated the weary smiles Potter would burden him with, the ones that said his experiments were failing and though it wasn't Draco's fault, he was the only one around to blame. He hated the coldness of the instruments and the emotionless and overtly clinical rooms he more or less lived in.  
  
"You complained of nausea the last time you were here."  
  
"When was the last time I haven't? There'll come a day when I can't even recognize my life without it." Draco had meant it to be flippant but the words left him with a hollow sense of portent all the same.  
  
Potter frowned. "These treatments aren't meant as a torture device, Malfoy. I know you have to be here but my only aim is to help you, and your kind."  
  
Draco bared his teeth and growled, feeling both supremely satisfied and vaguely ill when Potter flinched. "I don't have a _kind_."  
  
The other man sighed and muttered placatingly, "Of course not."  
  
Draco restrained himself from tackling him and clawing his eyes out. Barely.

* * *

Draco strolled down the parkway, his limbs throbbing and his head fuzzy. He didn't have enough left in his bank account for takeaway and only hoped he still had that slightly molding bread in the back of his cupboard. He hummed nonsensically as he wandered about, his eyes getting caught by a Muggle poster halfway to his flat. It was for some play and it had a picture of a man, who looked quite debonair, dipping a blushing woman. One of the reviewer's comments underneath proclaimed he was 'deeply and irrevocably marked' by the performances.  
  
Draco lifted up his sleeve and smirked. "You and me both."  
  
Fifteen minutes later, he opened the door to his flat, dropped his coat on the table and walked stiff-backed into his bedroom. He placed his hands behind his back, held the silence menacingly for a moment and then flicked his gaze up to his quiet surveyor in the corner of his ceiling. "Made your decision then, have you?"  
  
He switched on the light to find two large flies wrapped up in the silk web. Draco perked an eyebrow. "One for me and the other for you, I suppose?" He sighed. It reminded him of the night he'd missed his favorite dessert and Vince had offered him his second one, even though anyone with eyes could see how badly he wanted it himself. "Well, it's very kind of you, Vincent, and I suppose it wouldn't be too much of a hardship to allow you to stay." It felt right gifting the spider that name, after all, it wasn't as if Crabbe was using it anymore anyway.

* * *

Healer Potter prodded him with his wand, clucked his tongue, and scribbled in his charts. "Is your appetite off because of the potions? You're dropping weight rapidly." Potter's tone was disinterested but the worried looks he shot at Draco's peaked ribs were not.  
  
"I had to choose between buying a toaster or buying food this week. I chose the toaster, which I suppose is entirely flawed thinking since I've nothing to toast, but I spend most of my days in a sort of delirious haze—whether that's because of the potions or just a side-effect of my slow slide into madness, I'm not sure."  
  
Potter looked extremely uncomfortable when Draco had finally gotten his mouth to stop opening. "Er," he rubbed the back of his neck, "this potion has almost Veritaserum-like aftereffects. I'd forgotten to tell you."  
  
"Well yippee," Draco said deadpan, staring down at his knees. He _hated_ Potter.  
  
Potter left the room and came back with enough potion for the next week. Draco got up to leave when Potter cleared his throat and said, his face red, "Actually, I've gotten lunch for us if you'll stay?"  
  
Draco stayed.

* * *

"How do you feel today, Malfoy?"  
  
Draco gripped the edges of the table and willed Potter to face him. "Last night was... It was bad, Potter." His voice sounded even worse than he'd thought it would. It was hoarse from what felt like days of screaming and he was feeling jittery and half-crazed. He clenched his teeth and demanded, "What did you do to me?"  
  
Potter's face had drained of color at the first sight of him and was now drawn in concern. He pulled up a stool next to Draco's bed and placed a hand on his knee. "What happened, Malfoy?"  
  
Draco pushed Potter's hand away, not wanting to be anywhere near the man that had made his nightmares lucid and endless. Potter looked inexplicably hurt by this. "Did you put a hallucinogen in it? You did, didn't you?" he accused.  
  
"Of course not, now tell me. What happened?"  
  
Draco swallowed and looked away. "Greyback," he whispered.  
  
Potter's face went blank. "He's dead, Draco."  
  
Draco glared at him and Potter looked cowed. He shrugged his shoulders and said in a falsely calm tone of voice, "Didn't feel like it."  
  
Draco had gone back to staring at his knees and he was nearly shocked stupid when Potter grabbed his chin and stared at him, hard. "He's dead and gone and he can never touch you again. Not ever. Do you understand that?"  
  
Draco nodded dumbly, confused by Potter's intense reaction. The other man let out a whooshing breath and Draco only then noticed how badly his hands were shaking. He stood up and said, "I don't want you to take any more of the potion until we figure out what's causing the hallucinations. Hopefully I'll have a new compound for you to try tomorrow. I've lunch if you'll stay?"  
  
Potter asked each day even though Draco's answer had been the same for three weeks and each day he looked as if he thought Draco might say no. Draco reveled in the beaming smile Potter gave him when he replied, "Of course."  
  
It was good to know he could still make someone smile.

* * *

Draco collapsed onto his back on his tatty mattress. This new potion seemed to be working but it made him mind-numbingly tired. "Today's Mother's birthday, Vincent. I should get out of bed, don't you think?"  
  
Vincent didn't respond, just continued working diligently on his web. Draco didn't mind. Vince was clearly the strong, silent type and Draco couldn't begrudge him that.  
  
"I know I should, and bring her flowers. I've made sure I've enough." But Draco's feet felt like lead and his mind was all growly and uncooperative. "I feel rather stupid today, Vince. Certainly too stupid to move." He yawned and planted his face in his pillow. "Mother deserves company," he whispered, curling around it. "What say you, Vincent?"  
  
Vincent crawled from one end of his web to the other and Draco took that to mean he should keep busy and so Draco crawled off his mattress and managed to stand up straight after a moment of swaying. "To the cemetery I go then." He paused to look up at Vince, who had also paused to look at him, and said sincerely, "Have some good news for me when I get back, eh?" And he trusted that he would, after all, Vince had never let him down before.

* * *

"I've a new flatmate, Mum. He's quiet but he does his part." Draco placed the flowers on his mother's headstone, they looked nice but somehow improper. Was there even supposed to be color in a graveyard? He looked around at the other markers and noticed all the flowers bunched around their graves and felt perversely like his mother was losing in an unspoken popularity contest. "His name's Vince. I think he likes me okay."  
  
Draco sighed and, much like his four-year-old counterpart, he found himself unable to lie to his mother. "The potions aren't working, Mum. I still feel it, like I _am_ it. It's not as bad as at the full moon of course, but I still have all these... tendencies and it's like my mind forgets it's human at times. I can't hold a teacup or even read when it gets like that. And, I haven't told Potter, but those moments are getting more and more frequent. I just... research has got to progress, hasn't it? What will he do if he finds out it isn't?" Tears were streaming down Draco's cheeks and he felt even worse. His lot wasn't so bad, his mum was _dead_ after all. And surely even this beat being dead?

* * *

"How are you today, Malfoy? Any more hallucinations?"  
  
Draco shook his head, staring down at the floor, and Potter seemed relieved as he made a note in his chart. Halfway through his examination, Potter finally threw up his hands and demanded exasperatedly, "Why won't you look at me, Malfoy? Did you lie to me about the hallucinations or are you just still upset with me about them?"  
  
"What was that?" Potter demanded when he failed to catch Draco's muttered response.  
  
"I said," Draco managed angrily, "that if I look at you, I'll want to eat you. I can't... I'm not controlling it very well today."  
  
Draco saw Potter's knees appear in his eye line as the man sat down in front of him. "How long has the wolf been so close to the surface?"  
  
Draco flinched, hating being reminded of what was inside of him, of what was always fighting for freedom. "Since yesterday morning," he admitted cringingly.  
  
To Draco's utter amazement, Potter slammed his chart on the ground, the metal clipboard positively ringing from how hard it had hit the tile, and raged, "Damn it, Malfoy! You have to tell me these things! Don't you understand that I'm trying to make things better for you? The entire purpose of this is to help you and yet you treat me like I'm the goddamn enemy! We're not kids anymore and I don't _want_ to see you in pain. I want... I want for you to bloody _trust_ me."  
  
The room was still for a heavy moment in which the only thing that could be heard was Potter's harsh breathing before Draco finally gathered up the courage to mumble, "I didn't want you to get disappointed and give up."  
  
Draco didn't dare look up but he heard Potter gasp and then warm arms were wrapped around him and Potter was whispering nonsense to him, things like 'never give up' and 'why didn't you say' and 'want you safe, idiot'. None of which made much sense to Draco.

* * *

The second Draco managed to open his eyes, there was a familiar voice—however strained—yelling, "What the hell happened?"  
  
Draco blinked once. Twice. And managed to focus on the anxious and sleepless face of one Harry Potter. He opened his mouth only to find that his throat was too dry for words. Potter was there in an instant with a cup of water. Draco choked it down but his voice was still hoarse when he whispered, "I was hoping you could tell me."  
  
There were bags under Potter's eyes and he looked as tired as Draco felt. "You were attacked a few blocks from your flat." Potter's nose wrinkled and Draco could tell that Potter knew the reputation the area had: filthy, dangerous, cheap.  
  
"Who was it?"  
  
"Wizards, that's all the Aurors'll say. Supposedly they're 'looking into it'. Bullshit." Draco was surprised at how embittered Potter sounded. "It's not safe at your place, now they know where you live."  
  
Draco rolled his eyes. "Well I can't exactly afford to move, Potter." No point in pretending anymore, Potter knew he was living in a shithole. Clearly he didn't have the money to find another one.  
  
Potter looked uncomfortable. "I know that, Malfoy. I want you to stay with me." Draco broke out into laughter and Potter's face grew redder. "It makes sense. This way I can keep track of what's going on with the potions and you can stay in a safe place."  
  
"Potter, you can't be serious," Draco said, wiping tears of laughter from his eyes. "We'll kill each other."  
  
Potter crossed his arms, his mind obviously already set. "That's what everyone said when I started treating you."  
  
"Potter..."  
  
"I'll go and get your things, shall I?"

* * *

"Do you recognize it at all?"  
  
Draco perked a brow. "Have I been here before?" he asked incredulously.  
  
"It belonged to the Blacks, I thought you might've."  
  
Draco shook his head. "I think I can safely say no Malfoy has ever set foot in this disaster."  
  
Potter grinned and rubbed the back of his neck. "Yeah, it's a bit of a mess. I had a house-elf but it seemed like he'd be better off at Hogwarts." He followed this declaration up with a half-hearted shrug. "I suppose it's just you and me then."  
  
Draco gazed at Potter uncertainly but gamely followed the man upstairs as he led Draco to his new room.

* * *

Draco and Potter fell into a routine in only a couple of days. Draco would attempt to cook breakfast for them before Potter went to the hospital, after which he would find something in the study to occupy his time or sleep off some of the meaner effects of the potions. Potter would come home, bearing takeaway, and tell Draco about his day. Later he would administer a new potion, or the same if the current looked promising for stopping the change and killing his dehumanizing qualities, and they would each retire to their own rooms if all went well.  
  
Draco had gotten used to that so when he woke up to find Potter watching him one afternoon, a hand sliding through his sun-warmed hair, he was justifiably confused.  
  
Potter looked embarrassed at having been caught and shifted uncomfortably in his seat. Draco rubbed at his eyes. "What are you doing here?"  
  
Potter shrugged, red-faced. "I came to ask you for lunch."  
  
Which wasn't really an answer at all, but Draco felt it was the best he was going to get and decided not to push it pointlessly. "You've still time for it?"  
  
Potter grinned and nodded. "There's a new Thai place, not far. We can walk. I'll grab your coat."

* * *

"Malfoy, fuck! Fuck! Are you all right? Are you okay? Fuck, God, it's okay, okay? Just take this, all right? Malfoy, you have to help me. I know you're in pain but you have to try and calm down, all right?" Potter finally managed to shove the potion down Draco's throat and the convulsing stopped almost instantly. Potter looked exhausted and asked grimly, "You okay?"  
  
Draco bit back a sharp retort as Potter already looked like a war veteran; he knew too much and he'd seen too much. "Fine," he muttered.  
  
"Hellebore and jabberknoll, not an excellent combination." Potter rubbed a hand over his face. "I'm so sorry, Malfoy."  
  
"S'okay," Draco managed, slightly slurred. His limbs were still shaking.  
  
Potter looked disbelieving but all he said was, "I'll get us some takeaway, that's enough experiment for one night."  
  
But that turned out to be an empty offer as Draco was too unstable to even hold a fork, let alone get food to his mouth. He curled up on his bed and willed away the tremors that were making his muscles ache and burn. He drifted in and out of consciousness but some time during the night he felt the mattress dip and then Potter's arms were wrapped around him and he was massaging Draco's sore body while shushing him to sleep.

* * *

Potter tied the last of Draco's restraints and glanced away. "It's just until..."  
  
"I know," Draco growled. This close to the change it was harder to control his more negative emotions. Like impatience.  
  
"I wish—"  
  
" _I know_ ," he near-screamed and Potter seemed to get the picture as he shut up.  
  
The change was painful, as it always was, and Draco could feel bones being ripped out of place, elongated, and shifted. His body was a mass of fire but it wasn't really _his_ body anymore, it was the wolf's. His ribs punched outward, his bones cracked, and his face throbbed as his skin sprouted white fur.  
  
"Are you still you?" Potter asked tentatively from the corner.  
  
 _Idiot_ , Draco thought. What would he have done if he hadn't been, Draco wondered. The straps couldn't have stopped him if he had had any desire to break them and then Potter would be stuck in a room with a full-fledged werewolf. He nodded his shaggy head and Potter looked relieved. He carefully undid the straps, which had had to distort themselves quite a bit to conform to his dog-like body.  
  
Potter sat down on the bed and motioned Draco towards him.  Draco curled up in his lap agreeably while Potter scrubbed his knuckles against Draco's muzzle in a way that felt absolutely heavenly. "You're so beautiful, Malfoy," Potter whispered as he buried his hands in the soft fur. He didn't even seem to register that he was speaking, let alone what he was saying. "Absolutely beautiful."

* * *

"Hello, Draco," Hermione Granger said politely as Draco met her at the door. She had visited several times now but Draco still felt supremely uncomfortable in her presence and was glad when Potter trotted up behind him, his hair dripping wet, and said against Draco's neck, "Thanks for getting the door, Malfoy."  
  
He nodded stiltedly and ducked under Potter's arm, retreating back to the study. He intended to stay there for the rest of Granger's visit—surely four hours was long enough to catch up?—but unfortunately her voice could be heard as he made his way to the kitchen.  
  
Draco sighed and paused outside the door. Potter was leaning across the table towards Granger and she, in turn, was sitting in a chair at his side. "—just saying that she misses you."  
  
Potter pursed his lips coolly. "It didn't work out, Hermione. I'm not going to keep beating a dead thestral."  
  
She huffed and accused, "No, you'd rather hide out here with Draco Malfoy. Don't think I can't see what's going on, Harry. The way you rush home to be with him when we finally do get you out of the house, God, Harry, down to the way you _look_ at him like he's—"  
  
Potter's face went hard. "You don't know what you're talking about. He needed a place to stay and I had one, that's the extent of it, all right?" He slammed his cup down and said, "If you want to read things into it, that's your business, Hermione. But that's not reality."  
  
Potter stormed out of the room and nearly walked right into Draco. "Get out of my way," he growled coldly as he pushed past him.

* * *

Over the next few days, Draco tried to observe some of Granger's claims but Potter seemed to be going out of his way to avoid him at all costs and Draco eventually came to the conclusion that the girl must have been imagining things. After all, Draco thought as he stared at himself in the mirror, he wasn't anything to write home about. Not anymore, at least.  
  
It wasn't until a week after Draco had overheard Potter and Granger's conversation that Potter finally slowed down enough that Draco could actually speak to him. "Breakfast," he queried. "I've made eggs." He wasn't the best cook but Potter gamely never said so.  
  
Draco expected him to leave without a word as had been his pattern but he grunted out, "I've work," before he grabbed his cloak and fled.  
  
Draco assumed this was improvement.  
  
He managed to eat over half the portion he'd made on his own and, after a restive nap, he lumbered over to the study around midday to pick up the Potions text he'd been reading only to find that it wasn't there. He remembered seeing Potter with it and trotted off to the man's room to retrieve it.  
  
Sure enough, it was resting on Potter's nightstand and, as Draco walked over to get it, he slipped on a pair of satin pants. Draco smirked, Potter certainly didn't strike him as the satin pants-type. He picked them up gleefully, intending to tease Potter about his upper-crust undies, when he saw the monogram on the bottom and his face paled.  
  
 _DM._  
  
They were... but they couldn't be... What the hell was Potter doing with _his_ pants?  
  
Well it was obvious what Potter was doing with his pants, right by his bed, a questionable stain on the hem but... it couldn't be! Potter was his Healer and he had never...  
  
Draco scuttled out of the room, dropping his bottoms, and swore to himself that he was going to forget this just as soon as he could.

* * *

But Draco couldn't seem to forget it. In fact, it was driving him mad. And after the third night where he sat through dinner with Potter and the man acted completely normal, like he didn't have a pair of Draco's pants hidden away upstairs in his room, Draco found he couldn't take it anymore and slammed his fist down on the table hard enough to cut Potter off midstream. Between the combination of the newest potion and Potter's nonstop jabbering, Draco was surprised he hadn't killed something.  
  
"What Granger said," he forced out, not bothering with beating around the bush, "was it true?"  
  
Potter's face instantly lost all its animation. "What are you referring to?" he asked, his voice flat.  
  
"You know what, she made it sound like... like you were interested in me," Draco said, immediately feeling the courage that started this conversation flee him.  
  
"Of course I'm interested in you, you're my patient," he said in that same flat voice.  
  
Draco huffed in frustration. "You know what I mean and don't you dare pretend you don't. Do you want to fuck me, do you think about me while you're wanking, do you _like_ me?"  
  
Potter stared down at his plate and his face was pinched, angry. "Of course I don't like you, Malfoy." His voice was shaking. "You're my patient and that's the extent of our relationship. That's the extent of what I _want_ our relationship to be."  
  
With that, Potter threw down his napkin and left the room.

* * *

Draco's landlord was a surprisingly nice Indian man who had always had a bit of a soft spot for him and he didn't raise the rent any when Draco moved back in.  
  
Draco collapsed onto the tatty mattress and looked up into the corner for Vince but it seemed he had moved on. Draco supposed that was his way of saying Draco should have too. Well, things didn't always work out the way you wanted them to.

* * *

He found a job as an accounting clerk for a woman he'd met on one of his worse days. He had been sitting on a park bench, dictating to the wolf half of his brain that he was going to spend the rest of his day on two legs whether it approved or not when he felt a hand on his shoulder. He looked up into a kindly face and a soft voice asked if he was all right, citing he looked a bit ill.  
  
Draco had followed her back to her shop like a stray puppy so she could give him some Pepper-Up potion and a strong cup of tea. Her name was Anita and she had a flat above her shop and was in need of a bookkeeper. Funny the way things happened sometimes. Draco supposed at least he'd be making Vince proud.

* * *

Anita was out the next Thursday, leaving Draco to run the shop. He had been working there long enough to be able to greet the customers and ring up their orders. She had been kind enough to ask after how Draco was feeling before leaving. She was incredibly understanding about Draco's condition and he felt lucky to have her as most people would have run the other way screaming.  
  
He was in the back settling the accounts when the bell on the door chimed. Draco wiped his ink-stained fingers on a rag and went into the main room. "Hello, how can I—"  
  
"Draco," Potter said, his voice strained.  
  
"What-What are you... Why are you here?" His tone was harsher than he'd meant it to be but he couldn't care less. He could already feel the scarred wounds on his heart slicing back open.  
  
"I looked for you at your old place but your landlord said you'd moved out the day before. No one knew where you'd gone." Potter was twisting his hands together in a way that seemed painful. He looked hideous, his face was drawn and he likely hadn't slept since Draco'd left.  
  
"Why are you _here_?" Draco repeated, his voice absolutely trembling with barely-restrained fury.  
  
Potter's gaze lowered evasively. "You haven't been coming to the hospital for your treatments. It's a breach of your parole, the Ministry could—"  
  
"I don't give a _fuck_ what the Ministry could do," Draco growled before he turned on his heel.  
  
Potter grabbed his arm before he could even take a step. "I miss you." Potter's voice was intense and his features were desperate and Draco couldn't have looked away if he wanted to. "I want... You were right about me, everything you said, but it wasn't _just_ that, Draco. I didn't just want to fuck you, I wanted to make love to you. I didn't just think about you when I was wanking, I thought about you all the time. I still do. I don't just like you, I'm in fucking love with you." Potter cut himself off, looking like his mouth had run away with him. He grimaced uncertainly. "I didn't think you needed... I didn't think you'd want to know. You've so much to... and you didn't need _me_ on top of it. I-I was afraid if I'd said you'd leave." Potter smiled sadly, the irony not lost on either of them.  
  
"W-Why didn't you come right after I left?"  
  
"I thought you needed time. I hoped-I hoped you'd come back to me though." Potter looked miserable as he released Draco's arm. "But you didn't. You just left."  
  
Draco tilted Potter's chin up until they were gazing at one another. "Because I didn't want to fall in love on my own."  
  
He was in Potter's arms before Draco's eyes even registered the movement. His mouth descended over Draco's and he kissed with all the desperation and emotion of a man who'd been in love and denied for years.  
  
Draco was going to make sure that Potter never felt denied again.


End file.
